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Come Learn in Luxury at the Alpha Institutes CIO Summit

Breaking Media — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:00:54 +0000

Raise your hand if you work with alternative investments.

Good. Now that we’ve got that established, you should know about the Alpha Institutes CIO Summit, October 26-27 in New York. The summit will gather active and experienced institutional investors to share their techniques and portfolio construction ideas.

You don’t want to miss this event.

Over two days, thought-provoking panel discussions will highlight current fund management models, stimulate investment ideas and examine cutting-edge investing trends. The carefully chosen panelists have been picked from top financial institutions with significant exposure to hedge funds, private equity and venture capital.

Go to the Alpha Institutes’ website to register. If you’re not already convinced, it’s worth knowing that New York’s ultra-swanky Setai Fifth Avenue hotel is hosting the event. Because a little bit of pampering never hurt anyone…

Come Learn in Luxury at the Alpha Institutes CIO Summit

Dealbreaker — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:00:13 +0000

Raise your hand if you work with alternative investments.

You don’t want to miss this event.

Don’t Get Gouged on Gold

Dealbreaker — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 16:00:07 +0000

When former Microsoft-division Expedia launched in October 1996 on the cusp of the late-nineties Internet boom, the concept of a cost-comparison shopping website was still as foreign to people as mass market cell phones and the mp3. Today, the word Expedia is synonymous with travel, as the company has revolutionized the consumer shopping experience and inspired a legion of similarly themed business models.

Enter Goldshark.com, the popular new cost comparison shopping site for gold and silver bullion dealers. The makers of Goldshark.com faced a seemingly impossible task: to develop and create the infrastructure for an industry with an antiquated web presence, with prices that move by the second, products whose premiums fluctuate depending on volume, and dealers who offer variable charges for shipping, insurance, credit card fees, etc.

Unlike Expedia, which leveraged a preexisting infrastructure from the decades-old travel industry, GoldShark.com needed the cooperation from dealers in an industry not known for its tech savvy and highly protective of its pricing.

“Some dealers have been cooperative; others less so, for obvious reasons,” remarked Trent Henkaline, Gold Shark CEO. “But we want to protect and service customers, especially first time buyers who are susceptible to price gouging. The reputable dealers are the ones most eager to participate. The dealers are exposed to new clientele, buyer can choose from many high quality dealers and compare prices in real time.”

GoldShark.com accounts for all fee’s charged and even accommodates for volume price breaks. For example, a dealer who will not sell less than 10 gold coins at a time will not appear in the results if you are searching for one gold coin. This creates parity for dealers who may be competitive for one product at a particular volume, but not for others. For the consumers, they are seeing a true apples to apples comparison.

Gold Shark also provides instant Better Business Bureau ratings for each dealer. Many buyers have saved hundreds even thousands on one purchase. It takes less than 3 minutes to watch the video and stop comparing. While the site is proving invaluable to first time gold buyers many long time buyers learn they have been over paying.

Come Learn in Luxury at the Alpha Institutes CIO Summit

Dealbreaker — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:30:15 +0000

Will all the alternative investors please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?

You folks should know about the Alpha Institutes CIO Summit, October 26-27 in New York. The summit will gather active and experienced institutional investors to share their techniques and portfolio construction ideas.

You want to be a part of this event.

For a taste of what you will see and learn at the Alpha Institutes Summit, check out Alan Zafran‘s blogs at Forbes and The Street. Zafran, a partner at Luminous Capital, is just one of the industry leaders who will be presenting in October.

Come Learn in Luxury at the Alpha Institutes CIO Summit

Breaking Media — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:20:56 +0000

Raise your hand if you work with alternative investments.

You don’t want to miss this event.

Attendees will have a dynamic opportunity to explore various alternative investment vehicles, and they will learn about the most effective, popular strategies within the alternative investment industry. Over two days, thought-provoking panel discussions will highlight current fund management models, stimulate investment ideas and examine cutting-edge investing trends. The carefully chosen panelists have been picked from top financial institutions with significant exposure to hedge funds, private equity and venture capital.

Betterment.com CEO says E*Trade should be regulated as a gambling site

Dealbreaker — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:00:05 +0000

There are a lot of ways to invest out there. Unfortunately, most forms of individual-investor retail active trading are more like gambling than they are like investing, Why? The house always wins, and the longer you play the more money you stand to lose.
“These forms of trading should be regulated as gambling,” says Jon Stein, CEO of Betterment.com. “For those who want to gamble, E*Trade or Options Express are great accounts.”

You work long nights so you won’t have to when you’re old, right? You put in the hours to pay off your debt and save so your kids won’t have the debt in the first place.

So why would you take your hard-earned savings and invest them in high-stakes poker? That’s right, you wouldn’t.

Stein says his company, Betterment.com, is a better, safer alternative to sites like E*Trade. Betterment.com is different because it uses diversified portfolios of ETFs and treasury bonds to track the market, not to beat it. Consumers are not gambling on individual stock picks – they are simply allocating their dollars based on risk tolerance.

“Over the long haul, your money will grow with the market,” Stein says. “That is the only gamble a smart investor ought to take.”

If you’re tired of gambling with your investment portfolio, set up your Betterment.com account in less than five minutes.

View more videos at: http://www.nbcnewyork.com.

Betterment.com is a DealBreaker sponsor.

Poker Lessons For DB Readers

Dealbreaker — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 17:00:41 +0000

Are you as bad at poker as the editor of this site? You’re in luck–through our partners at Gilt, we’re offering you a one-on-one poker lesson with a World Series of Poker finalist. As an added bonus, the instructor, Clayton Fletcher, is also a comic. After the one-hour poker lesson there will be a reception at CB’s Comedy Club at Caffe del Mare. And you’ll get tickets to Fletcher’s next show. And really, you should be able to make back the price of the lesson after an hour at the tables. The sale for Dealbreaker readers starts today and runs through December 28th. Fletcher has slots open from January 3rd until February 21st. Click here for all of the information.

An Offer from Gilt Group

Dealbreaker — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:00:53 +0000

Need new clothes? For an interview, to impress IR chicks or just sitting around on the couch? Working together with Gilt Groupe, which hosts invitation-only sales of luxury brands at prices up to 70% off retail, we’ve put together a special sale just for DB readers. Here’s your chance to snap up sharp and sophisticated clothing, footwear and accessories, from some of the most trusted names in menswear. See, e.g., Ted Baker; Thomas Pink; Cole Haan; A. Testoni; Calvin Klein and more.

Check out the wares here. The sale starts today at noon and ends at [TK] — so act now.

Stockings And Bonds Poker Tournament Giveaway

Dealbreaker — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:30:39 +0000

So! Caesars is putting on a poker tournament* Saturday, March 13 and they want you to be there! Most people need to sign up and pay their own way but one Dealbreaker reader will get his or her buy-in/room/after party access paid for, provided you answer simple question:

Who is responsible for Dealbreaker/Breaking Media’s recent technology woes? Feel free to answer below but in the event you actually want to win this thing, send your answer here, as well. We’ll be picking a winner this Friday. (For those of you who are losers but still want to go, sign up here).

*Stuff you could win: (part of a) $30,000 prize pool, a seat at the World Series of Poker 2010 Main Event, a $7,500 XO JET airfare credit.

FOR ONLINE PACKAGES ONLY, NO REFUNDS FOR CANCELLATIONS WITHIN 72 HOURS OF THE EVENT. $30,000 prize guarantee requires 100 or more participants. Reservations required. Management reserves the right to change or cancel this promotion at any time. Must be 21 or older to gamble, enter, or remain in a New Jersey casino or participate in any Caesars promotion. Know When To Stop Before You Start. ® Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. ©2010, Harrah’s License Company, LLC.

Bell Canada Minds the Bollocks

Keith Hahn — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:35:37 +0000

Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) drops the firebomb on its most recent ad campaign, from Reuters:

The ads for Bell Canada’s Solo discount service showed a young woman decked out in flashy punk rock attire, with a button that reads “Belsen was a gas” — the controversial title of a song by the Sex Pistols, and a reference to Nazi Germany’s Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
“It was inadvertent,” Bell Canada spokesman Mark Langton said on Friday, noting that the dozen ads were taken down as soon as the company realized its mistake. “Obviously, we would never depict such an offensive slogan in our advertising.”

The ad offended Jews (and Sex Pistols fans) taking public transport in Vancouver and Toronto.
Holocaust song title has firm squirming [Reuters]

It’s My Deutsche In A Box

John Carney — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 15:51:11 +0000

From copyranter, how did this man get this woman on top of this building? Easy – a “passion to perform,” a desire to be “lifted even higher,” and a Deutsche in a box.
Step 1: Cut a hole in the logo
Step 2: Put your Deutsche in that box
Step 3: Make her sit on the box
And that’s the way you do it.
Deutsche Bank. A Passion to Perform…oral sex on our Logo. [copyranter]

Diet Coke Embraces Its Virtual Nothingness

John Carney — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:17:19 +0000

We remember the first time we had a Diet Coke, when that stupid vending machine next to the baseball field was out of regular Coke. After one sip and some great expectorations, we threw the mostly full can away thinking two things: 1.) this tastes like someone added “ass” to water, 2.) girls will put anything in their mouths if they think it will help them lose weight. (Both insights have aided people throughout the years. The first helped Glaceau founder J. Darius Bikoff make millions. The second netted more than a few hummers from Kate Moss.)
As bottled water encroaches on soft-drink territory (the two are now comprable in size, with bottled water bringing in $50 billion a year to soda’s $68 billion), Diet Coke has employed a marketing team of budding Sartreans, who are embracing Coke’s nothingness as quintessential to its being.
A new Diet Coke print ad, pointed out by Freakonmics’ Steven Levitt, simply contains a picture of a can of Diet Coke and the tag-line “99 Percent Water.” (Next up, an abortion-clinic ad that shows a picture of a fetus in a bottle with the tagline “75 Percent Water” (keeping with the theme of the day))
Levitt notes how ridiculous this ad would have seemed in the 80s, and several of the commenters note that pointing out the water content of something is ridiculous in the first place, since everything we drink is mostly water. Starbucks – everything we serve is 98+% water. Even water is 99% water in most cases.
At DealBreaker, we’re starting a new marketing firm for consumer products that will up the post-existentialist ante, and just advertise our products as “99.9 Percent Nothing.” You can eat almost nothing, virtually guilt free. By eating almost nothing, you’re bound to lose weight. After all, everything is mostly nothing (look at an atom).
Diet Coke is 99% Water (And That Is Now a Good Thing) [Freakonomics Blog]

SunGard: Information Availability Would Have Been Nice

Keith Hahn — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 20:37:31 +0000

From copyranter, SunGard’s timing on this August 1st print ad (in CIO mag) is a bit unfortunate, forcing the company to do some AdvancedRecovery of its own.
Today, in August publication ad images not likely to be used in September issues… [copyranter]

The Reality Gap

Keith Hahn — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:59:42 +0000

Faced with a case of recurring ad-failure amidst tanking same-store sales, Gap is taking the crazy cool notion of shunning TV in a revolutionary new print-only campaign.
The Laird & Partners campaign is revolutionary because it features relatively obscure personalities wearing Gap clothing. Personalities as obscure as John Mayer, Lucy Liu, Forest Whitaker and Selma Blair. We’re confused. So the new print-only Gap ads will have really famous people wearing Gap clothing. Sounds like a revolution to me, or the most common clothing ad there is. Yes, people get paid big money to come up with these ideas.
One of these men, Trey Laird, president of the ad firm that bears his name, comments that the people in the new Gap ads “are not the most expected choices, they’re not in Us Weekly every week.” Rather, they are in Us Weekly every other week. It seems like Gap is spending more time marketing the fact that its new ads are edgy than its actual clothing, as we look for clues as to why the chain’s sales stink.
The ad wizards mulled it over and realized that maybe they do have a tired, generic concept. That’s why the pictures will be in black and white and shot by Annie Leibovitz, best known lately for making Queen Elizabeth II look like she was in the Matrix. Sprinkle in a few people who aren’t as famous as the dude dating Jessica Simpson, like the director of “An Inconvenient Truth,” and you get your revolution… or a dressed up offshoot of 90% of clothing ads.
Gap Tries a Somewhat Old-Fashioned Campaign [New York Times]

Caption Contest: Racist Intel Ad

Keith Hahn — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:24:37 +0000

The latest Intel print ad for the Core 2 Duo processor features several large black guys posed in pre-prostration to a nerdy white overlord who looks like an extra from a bad Dockers commercial. Is the ad racist or are people reading into this too much? A common misreading of ‘bent over black guys overseen by complacent white dude’ imagery is to think that it’s racist. Would the ad have made more sense if Intel used Chinese swimmers?
Also, any ideas on where this ad was focus tested (Intel’s Andersonville HQ)? Intel probably just figured that only one of the people in the picture would be buying products with its new high-end chips anyway. That person of course, is the guy who finishes first in the race.
Enter your caption below!
The Union and Confederacy have been uncivilly vying over Intel’s share price (Nasdaq: INTC) which has ranged in daily trading to up over 1% to down 1.5%.
Intel Ad Might be Racist, but Boy Does It Make Me Want a Core 2 Duo [Gizmondo via Fark]
Intel under fire for ‘racist’ ad [The Inquirer]